Current climate models underestimate warming by black carbon aerosol

Soot belches out of diesel engines, rises from wood and dung burning cook stoves and shoots out of oil refinery stacks. According to recent research, air pollution including soot is linked to heart disease some cancers and in the US as many as 150000 cases of diabetes every year.

Is Antarctica becoming more like Greenland?

Antarctica is high and dry and mostly bitterly cold, and its easy to think of its ice and snow as locked away in a freezer, protected from melt expected around its low- lying coasts and floating ice shelves. But that view may be wrong.

Presence of textile microfibers from washing machines in marine floors

A study quantifies the presence of textile microfibers in south European marine floors. Researchers analyzed the amount of these colored fibers, which vary between 3 to 8 mm but are extremely fine, with less than a .1 mm diameter, and which come mainly from washing machines. The results show the dominance of cellulose fibers over synthetic polymers, and highlight several oceanographic process pile and transport microfibers to marine hollow. 

Evolution: South Africa's hominin record is a fair-weather friend

The fossil record of early hominins in South Africa is biased towards periods of drier climate, suggests a study of cave deposits. This finding suggests there are gaps in the fossil recors, potentially obscuring evolutionary patterns and affecting our understanding of both the habitats and dietary behaviors of early hominins in this region. South Africa highest concentration of early hominin fossils comes from the cradle of humankind caves northwest of Johannesburg.